The SUAVe system allows an unmanned aerial vehicle to create detailed aerial maps of archeological sites

If you were in Peru right now, at the long-abandoned Inca village
of Mawchu, you might see something very modern flying over it – a Skate
unmanned aerial vehicle. The aircraft is the key part of a system
designed by a team from Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Once
perfected, it should be able to accomplish in 10 to 15 minutes what
would take an archeological team two to three field seasons to complete.

The system is known as SUAVe, which stands for Semi-autonomous
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Created by engineering professor Julie A. Adams
and archeologist Steven Wernke, it consists of the Skate paired with a
custom software system. Using its onboard still camera, the UAV is
intended to fly over archeological sites, creating high-resolution
composite aerial maps.

Algorithms in the software let it to set its own flight patterns
(incorporating geographical parameters supplied by the user), and allow
it to compensate for factors such as wind speed, sun angle, and overlap
between photos.

The aircraft itself can fit in a backpack, and the system as a whole
is designed to be simple enough to use that no specially-trained
engineers would be required to operate it – ideally, a lone archeologist
could just hike into a remote location, pull out the UAV and enter the
coordinates of the site, then launch it. Once its flight was complete,
its photographs could be downloaded and automatically stitched together
to form a detailed photo mosaic of the landscape.

The Skate
is well-suited to tasks such as mapping, as its independently
articulating motor pods allow it to switch back and forth between
horizontal and vertical flight, and execute vertical take-offs and
landings.

SUAVe is currently undergoing testing at Mawchu, and plans are in
place for it to return there next year for further refinements. Along
with its use in archeology, Adams believes that it could also be useful
to people such as first responders at disaster sites, allowing them to
deploy their resources most effectively.